Faces
by KnightlyWordsmith
Summary: When the drink runs out, Deathmask sees faces. Dead faces didn't used to bother him, but these ones do. Only now the face that's in front of him isn't only in his head. With the awakening of his God Cloth, he's also awakened the Spirit of the Cancer Cloth, and she has something to say about how he's been wasting his second chance at life.


**A/N-** So, this was a birthday present for sekishiki-kiousen over on tumblr. It's set in their Cloth AU, which you should all really check out.

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When his luck ran out, so did his coin. When the all his coin had run out, so too did his drink. In a sour mood Deathmask made his way back to his room, not quite drunk enough to be stumbling. Normally, this would be considered a good thing, but it wasn't. It also meant he wasn't drunk enough to forget.

The room he was staying in reflected the general state of his life. In short, it was a mess. The bed hadn't been made in days, with half a deck of cards littering one end of it and the floor beside it. Scattered bottles were all over the room, peeking out from under the bed, lying on their sides on the small dresser and on the sill of the one grimey window. The stench that permeated the room was reminiscent of stale vomit that was left to sit for hours before being cleaned up.

The only bright thing in the whole room, in his whole life, was the gleam of gold in the corner of the room. The Cancer Cloth. _His_ Cancer Cloth once again, after so long. Part of him yearned to open the box, to call forth the Cloth once again, to feel it's lifeblood flow in tandem with his own, if only to prove that he could.

But there was no point to it, so instead he turned away from the shining gold box. He grabbed one of the discarded liquor bottles, and frowned to find it empty. He didn't even bother to check the others. He knew it would be the same.

With nothing else to do, Deathmask threw himself face first on the low bed, scattering cards as he did so. Maybe he could fall asleep. Maybe he could before the faces appeared again.

Faces. Ha!

There was a time when he could have looked at dead faces without them having the smallest effect on him. Even if they were the faces of those he knew, but death had a way of changing a man. Even a man who called himself Deathmask. Endless time floating in a dark void of nothingness. The lack of sensation a worse torture than any physical pain imaginable. A shudder ran through him. Sleep wasn't coming fast enough.

No, after experiencing it himself, Deathmask was no longer so quick to wish death on others. It was when this realization had slowly dawned on him that he had met this woman.

She was weak and struggling to live, but struggling so hard. He'd noticed the struggles of those not strong enough to survive before. Had laughed at them, devoid of any kind of pity, but they were just trying to avoid that looming darkness of death. It wasn't quite pity he had felt for her, but maybe a sense of kinship he'd never realized before. A sense that even though he was leagues stronger than she could ever hope to be, he now found himself in that same struggle for life over death.

So, he'd tried to help, a foreign thing to him. Maybe that's why he'd failed. Maybe he was so bad at being good, his efforts could only bring misfortune to others.

Blue eyes , intruded his thoughts, framed by equally blue strands of hair. A smile that was too kind to be true. An infuriating mole he'd on more than one occasion threatened to pluck right off. Warm green eyes which sparkled with silent laughter.

Deathmask squeezed his eyes closed, releasing a groan. The images weren't going away, only becoming more potent. He could almost hear their voices now. Smell the scent of roses amid the stench of the room. See a writhing, blood-soaked vine. Feel skin so cold and pale in his arms.

He sat up with a start, breath coming unnaturally quickly. Eyes still closed he ran a hand roughly through his hair, breath still coming in gasps, trying to rid himself of it all.

"Are you quite done wasting this new life of yours?"

Deathmask jumped. He was sure he'd been alone, but the voice, though faint, sounded out from somewhere close by. He swivelled his head around, searching the four corners of the tiny room he currently called home. His gaze stopped on the corner where his Cloth box lay.

Above the box, the air was moving, shimmering slightly as it condensed into a shape. The shape was almost ethereal, with little substance but it was there, and it was like all his nightmares, and dark thoughts had entered reality.

A face first, then slowly the outline of a body. _Their_ face, sad where she usually smiled. _Their_ long, flowing hair. _Their_ rose flaming in its hair. Had he managed to conjure up this cruel apparition, with its blend of the very faces that were haunting him?

But no, as the image became more solid, he realized that wasn't exactly true. It wasn't quite their face. As colour saturated the image he could see the hair was darker than her's, and tinted a shade of green. And the eyes. The slant was wrong, as was the colour. Not icy blue or dark green, but molten gold.

The body was garbed in a cloak, the kind they wore in Asgard to ward off the biting chill of the air. It was lined with a thick wool, and patterned with sharp angular shapes. Beneath the cloak, a simple dress floated down to about a foot above the ground, revealing that the apparition lacked legs.

"Wh-what-who?" Deathmask couldn't compose himself to come out with an intelligent question. He hadn't drunk enough to forget, so he was definitely too sober to be having visions.

"Don't remember me?" The woman's voice was clearer now, stronger as the image before him manifested more strongly in reality. Her eyes were hooded, but bored into him, as she continued in an almost lazy manner, "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you've already forgotten our earlier meeting. When I first tried to contact you had been at the bottom of at least your third bottle."

He should remember her? This, this thing? This spirit? Deathmask tried to think back, but the past few days were nothing more than an alcohol induced fog. Excellent for forgetting things you wanted to forget, but not so good for remembering things that happened during that time.

Deathmask swallowed, working his mouth until he felt solidly in control of it again. "What are you?" He demanded of the spirit, his words coming out firmly. He had a feeling he knew. That pattern on her cloak was as familiar as his own face, but he'd never heard of such a thing existing before. Everyone knew a Cloth had a soul, but was it possible to actually see it and speak with it?

"You know the answer to that question, Deathmask," the spirit replied, something of a smirk turning her mouth upward, as if she knew the thoughts running through his head. "I am Cancer, Spirit of the Cancer Cloth, and I am here to help you."

"Help me?" Deathmask repeated, still not quite believing what he was looking at was real.

"The burden of a Cloth, especially of a Golden God Cloth, is not one a human can bear alone," the spirit intoned with little emotion. It sounded like the kind of thing that was supposed to be proclaimed with the utmost formality, but the spirit before him spoke the words almost robotically, as if only interested in getting them out of the way. "When you burned your Cosmos to awaken your God Cloth, you awakened me as well."

Cloth Spirits? He'd never heard of such a thing. Then again he'd never heard of the secret power locked away in the Cancer Cloth that he'd released against Andreas.

Those eyes were boring into him again. _Shura's_ eyes he realized with a start. Deathmask spared a moment's thought to the Capricorn Saint. Where was Shura? Surely he'd been resurrected along with the rest of the Gold Saints, but was he still alive? Or had he already met the same fate as the Pisces Saint? Was he just another face to haunt his waking nightmares?

Before his thoughts could go much further, Cancer was speaking again. "You think you're bad at being good, do you?" This thing knew him, this spirit knew his mind. If this was the essence of the Cloth he'd carried for years before their untimely separation, he shouldn't really be surprised. Still, it was unsettling to hear one's own thoughts spoken aloud to you. "You're right."

Taken aback, Deathmask lowered his eyes in a glare. "I thought you just said you were here to help. How does insulting me achieve that?"

"It helps you come to the same realization you would have anyway, but in a much shorter time period," Cancer replied calmly, unperturbed by the ire in Deathmask's voice. "You're bad at being good," she repeated. "So stop trying. Stop trying to do the right things for the right reasons. Do them for the wrong ones."

"The right things for the wrong reasons?" What was this spirit talking about? His only focus the last few days had been on where to get a drink and where to get enough to put himself into a stupor.

Cancer's eyes narrowed, irritation or annoyance flashing in them. It was the first hint of emotion she had expressed. "Andreas hurt you. He took away those you learned to care about," her voice was hard now. "Stop pitying yourself." Hackles rose on Deathmask's shoulders at her words. He did _not_ pity himself, but she wasn't done yet. "Quit soiling yourself with drink and get your revenge."

 _Revenge_. That word reverberated with him in a way that nothing the spirit had said so far had. He'd once been a person who would get revenge for the slightest wrong done against him. Had death changed him so much that he'd really chosen to be idle this long after what had happened? He felt his hands clench into fists.

Something must have shown in his face, as another emotion flickered briefly across the spirit's face. Was it pride this time? The flaming wisp surrounding the rose in her hair seemed to pulse brighter as she said, "By the look on your face you haven't forgotten how much you enjoy the taste of revenge. Clearly even death can't make you forget that."

Deathmask thought back to when he had awakened the Cancer Cloth, and found that extra power hidden within it. At the time, his rage had fueled its power, but as soon as his fury dissipated he was no longer able to control it. If it were possible to harness that power though, to control it for a longer period of time, maybe he would once again be able to enjoy that succulent taste of revenge.

He closed his fists even tighter, and looked the Cloth Spirit straight in the eye. "You can help me do it can you?" She nodded, her face emotionless, giving away nothing. "Is that what you want then? To help me get revenge for Helena and Aphrodite." It was strange, saying their names out loud, after having been thinking of them as only 'him' and 'her' for so long, to distance himself from the strange ache thoughts of them brought about.

"What's important is that it's what you want," Cancer replied smoothly.

Deathmask nodded, a sense of conviction growing inside him. One of his old frenzied smiles was appearing on his face. "Then you're going to help me smash that bastard's face in."

"Good." The ghost of a smile graced Cancer's face. Her form shimmered briefly. "I'll be here when you're ready to go after him."

As Deathmask watched, the Cloth Spirit began to fade away. "But Deathmask," she said before disappearing completely, her eyes the only bright spot left in her faded face. The eyes were still Shura's, but the expression in them was that of a different Saint. Haughty and a little judging, the sly narrowing of them screamed of Aphrodite. "Get that thing off your face first. I won' be seen with a Saint who can't clean himself up."


End file.
